What Once Was
by theGrayFoxx
Summary: It started with a single discovery, but it ended with new friendships and the return of an entire race.
1. Discovery

_Frozen Discovery_

"This exploration in the arctic is so foolish." Sighed an old, weathered bloodhound, once again looking through the "Reports" Sent in by the Arctic Exploration Team.

"They won't find anything, it's too cold and always has been for life to ever exist. This was one big waste of money." Agreed a much younger, but no more optimistic fox.

"Well, I've had multiple requests from the science division to explore it. And Fox, could you please raise those curtains? I haven't had the chance to see the city lately." The old hound requested, pointing to the dusty velvet curtains behind his desk.

The fox, creatively named Fox, complied, pulling his weight out of the red velvet lounge chair and walked across the room to pull the elaborately braded rope that controlled the curtains position.

Once he pulled them, a wave of red-orange evening sunlight bathed everything in the office. The old hound stood up from his fragile looking desk chair, and turned to peer out at the seemingly endless city that stretched out before his 17th story office.

The light glinted beautifully off the millions of building windows, and all for the cars and pedestrians just barely visible from the great height.

"It's beautiful, is it not Fox?" He said, looking out upon the city which was his to protect.

Fox stepped forward to stand beside the hound. "It is indeed Pepper. I wish it could stay like this by itself though."

Pepper was about to respond before a very loud and quite obnoxious assault on their ears began bursting from seemingly the walls, making the two in the room jump violently.

"What is it Vix?" Asked a now very startled Pepper, rubbing his ears with his paws and making sure there was no blood.

"You need to get down here _now_ General Pepper sir. They've found something big!" The Generals eyes widened a bit as the irritating voice finished is speaking.

"What? How? There is nothing up there?" Pepper shouted, his face plastered with shock and disbelief.

"It's some kind of advanced ruin. They have a live feed broadcasting to the command center. Hurry up here!" The voice squealed excitedly, slightly distorted by the intercom.

"Let's go Fox! I need to see this." Pepper had made it out the door beside Fox with a speed you wouldn't expect from anyone his age.

"Man, you know? You really need to get the intercom off the surround sound. I almost had a heart attack so it can't be very good for you!" Fox said when he caught up the old hounds startlingly fast pace.

Pepper sighed but did not answer him. When they reached the control room the large metal doors slid open with a loud hiss of the hydraulics. The duo stepped through the opening and into the large control room.

In the control room were multiple rows of computers, each with a different person behind them, all staring up at one massive screen.

Said screen held an image which was either impressive or terrifying depending on who see's it. It was a live feed of a massive door in a cavern found in the arctic.

"General, this is it. This is not of Cornerian making. We think its alien sir." Said the voice from the intercom, his voice less annoying than before. Pepper looked to the squat hedgehog standing on a small platform overlooking the room.

"Wha-what is it?" Fox stuttered, in awe of the size and design of the wall.

"We think it's the entrance to a compound. Now that you are here, Pepper, may I give the team permission to enter the structure?"

Pepper merely nodded, his gaze now transfixed on the oddity discovered in a seemingly barren place.

"Explorer 1, permission to go." At his word, to camera, apparently mounted on someone's helmet, began to move closer to the door, where it stopped and looked over to others. Most of them were in snow white coats and thick pants, but some wore armor and carried weapons, just in case. But they were all arctic wolves, as they were suited for this environment better than others.

"Plant the-," A loud whirring followed by the screech of several tons of metal interrupted the hedgehog, who once again stared in awe at the screen. The massive door was opening itself, blue energy streaked all over it in a computer chip design as the complicated loch released themselves.

A gush of warmed air flooded from the door, near instantaneously melting the snow and frost near the door. The frost that had settled on the team's helmets melted leaving behind small drops of water to slide off.

"Well, that's one way to do it!" One of the explorers commented.

"Shut up!"

"Hey…"

"All of you shut up! Second directive initiated, turn on your lights." Barked a wolf, who had a hemetlight already on.

"Someone shit the bed." Grumbled the man behind the camera as he followed his now advancing colleagues.

They didn't get far before a blue glow lit up the small appearing room. It created small shadows that erupted from the intricately carved floor and walls. A voice began to broadcast from somewhere, scaring everyone until they began to listen.

"If you are hearing this, and can understand this, it means either you are really smart, or you are influenced by what was left of our culture. Or some other third thing…" A second voice interrupted the first.

"Don't act like an ass!" Another voice hissed.

"Hey, I'm in charge of recording, now shut up. Anyway, whoever triggered this recording, you need to listen. Since the doors only open when they detect some form of energy, you are technologically advanced enough. Now you need to listen. Shits gone down millions of years before you got here, and all but one of us are dead, and even the one may not have survived."

Everyone was frozen. Not one of them new how to react to this and none of them could believe it. The control room was silent, not a noise was made. Pepper looked as though he'd seen a ghost, and Fox didn't look any better, and they all shared a dropped jaw.

"Now, you need to listen, and no, this isn't a trap."

"Like that's reassuring." The other voice cut in again. "Oh yeah, real mature Dean." It said not long after, signaling the one named Dean had done something.

"Well then shut up. This is important. Now, one of you who are listening need to walk up and place you hands on the sphere on the podium in front of you, assuming you haven't sprinted in the opposite direction by now."

"Does-does it mean something, that they speak our language?" Fox finally asked, breaking the silence in the room like a hammer to glass.

"Fox, I think we speak their language. Our scanners indicate that this compound is 23 million years old. That's remarkable! Now, one of you do it! Put your hand on that sphere!" Vix ordered, seeming overly giddy now. After all, it was his idea to explore the arctic.

Slowly, one of the bravest of the team stepped forward to the earlier unnoticed podium, and inched his hand to it before making contact.

Rays of nearly blinding light sprayed like water from the sphere, causing the wolf that had activated it to yelp and fall back, and the rest of the team step back. The light seems to flow through the walls and floors, lighting up the whole area and revealing the true scope of the room.

"Oh, my God." Vix said in a near whisper, not audible over the massive chatter that had erupted from the room. Fox had called his team and told them to come, while Pepper still just stood there.

The voice resumed then. "Now that you've done that, you need to follow the blue light on the floor. Don't go anywhere else yet. Well, it's not like you can, but still. I will walk you through the few steps you need to take."

"Steps for what I wonder?" Vix asked himself aloud.

"Well move already!" He shouted at the team whom were locked in place. They began to move forward, following the same pattern of light they saw in the door. They gazed at the foreign architecture all throughout the room, and felt a bit humbled at the people that built its technology.

They came to a passage which led down before resuming a straight course.

The voice began to speak from the walls, as the Cornerian team thought, and began to explain a bit more.

"Now, the reason no one greeted you, is because we have been killed off by a massive alien race. They are technologically inferior, but there are just to many of them. If what the eggheads think is true, then you are the evolved descendants of the animals we are familiar with now. But if not, whatever. Now, you are about to enter a cryo room. And now you're in it. What you need to do, is press the BIG. BLUE. BUTTON!" The team was in a room with dozens of deactivated terminals, most of which were of a tech level that they weren't understood, but the one right in the middle of the room was quite simple.

It was a simple podium with a single button in the middle that steadily blinked blue. The other computers had strange holographic interfaces with symbols the Cornerians were unfamiliar with.

"Well, I'll go press it then." A soldier said, pushing through the others. He stepped up the terminal and presses the button. A loud hiss cut through the air as compressed gasses escaped from the gaps in the wall caused by the moving of a large white hexagonal prism.

Everyone by then was past the point of being shocked, so they simply waited for the next instructions.

"Now that you've done that, you need to know, that no matter what you are, or what you look like, who you are about to see is going to look different. I pray he's alive. Now just touch the pod and watch."

Someone had poked the pod as soon as he hear touch, so they were already watching the metal move away like it was alive, revealing a very strange sight.

"My God! What have we found?!" Vix shouting, jumping off the platform.

"What the fuck?!" That about summed up what everyone was thinking.

"Sir…it's alive." And with those words, a whole new experience began for everyone.

**Well, it was kinda short, and I don't think it's all that good, but we'll see! I'll be messing with this a bit more soon. Heck, it may even become a main project depending on what you guys think! But, I'll just have to wait for some feedback from all of you!**

**Till next time**

**(P.S. I went over it and added in a bit more detail. I will do so for any chapter that I believe needs it.)**


	2. What Now?

_What Now?_

"Yes sir, we believe he should have regained consciousness within an hour. Oh, and be sure to tell the media to fuck off. Will do sir. See you here in twenty." And exhausted canine ended the call and flopped back in his floppy recliner. He had spent a lot of time in the lab the human had been placed in after being taken from the ancient base two months prior.

"You've taken a lot out of me, ya know that?" He sighed, speaking now to the barely unconscious human lying on a specialized bed. The bed was designed as more or less a life support system as the humans cells were old and partially dead from the time he was in cryo. They were unable to function on their own, and needed constant supervision, so the Rottweiler sitting in the chair had to constantly check up on him to make sure everything was functioning.

He was dressed in the same clothing they found him in. It reseambled a slightly armored flightsuit. It had two shades of red for color, and it had spaces for some form of attachments. It was more advanced than it looked however. The wearer was clearly just a bit nostalgic. It looked very maneuverable and comfortably for the wearer as well.

"Where's my-hello! You just moved! Maybe I should call the General back in case you- nah. He'll just have to deal if you wake up early." The Rottweiler, who wore a nametag that bore the name of Dane, made it a habit to speak aloud to the human as if he were in a coma. He didn't know if he could hear him, but it kept Dane sane during his countless hours in that blank, white, and a bit _too_ clean of a room.

He heard a small digital beep emitted by brain wave scanner, telling him there was a stirring in the human's thoughts.

"Well," He said, slowly standing back up out of the worn and faded chair he called home. He cracked his back on the move. His gait was fast and slightly rushed as he half ran to the console that control several of the systems the human was hooked up to.

The constant flicker of the lighting continued as it had since they were cut on. So about two months he's had to put up with it. But, he carried on browsing the multicolored files on the computer as it continued to scan the humans brainwaves. While doings so he reached over to place the cuffs attached to the bed around its occupant's wrists, just to be safe.

"Ah, there it is!" He said when he found a confusingly named file. It contained the readout from the scanner. He needed to gage whether or not the brainwaves were showing the first stages of awareness. Sure enough, as he scrolled sideways through the data from that day, it showed a large spike in activity bordering the point where the human would begin to wake.

"Oh, well, looks like you'll be moving around when pepper gets here!" He said as he shuffled back to his chair, never once breaking eye contact with the nearly awake human. Instead of sitting in the chair, he pushed it over to the computer and began to put his boots on, as he had taken them off for comfort reasons.

"At least I took a shower sometime yesterday. I can make a good first impression." He said, tying the laces of the black steel toed boots. He rubbed out a scuff mark he had noticed before moving to the next boot.

_What was I supposed to do first when he woke up again?_

"Meh, I'll wing it. They'll fire me, but I think I deserve a nice, long vacation." He muttered, standing up straight and just looking at the waking human lying on the white bed. He shuffled in place a bit before walking across the room the spot he'd _thought _he left his sandwich, only to find it missing.

"Woah, something is _wrong _here. Where my sandw-oh. Found it. I put it over here, for some reason." He picked up the wrapped form sitting several feet from where he was standing. He unwrapped the foil, not caring that several shining pieces fell to his feet. He dug into the freshly exposed sandwich, and savored the taste and juice of his homemade steak he'd plopped over the bacon and cooked ham.

He moaned a bit, looking up to the ceiling before wolfing down the rest with little thought. He looked back over to the monitor showing the chart for brain activity and nearly choked to death from the bacon bits.

The human was looking dead at him, his electric blue eyes seemed ready to launched lightning at him, but of course never did.

"Ummm, cun yu hurld on a shec? Mouf ish full." He attempted to say through a half a burger. He was fairly experienced with working around aliens, but he kept his eyes open and ears straight up just in case. The circumstances he was under were different than anything he'd dealt with before.

"Where. Am. I." The human tried to say assertively, but his lack of strength and the fact this was the first time he'd spoken in who knows how long, caused the words to come out as little more than a scratchy whisper.

Dane swallowed multiple times before responding, "Well, you uh, just woke up. You've been, frozen, you _were _in some compound up North, and now you're thawed out and _strapped _to a bed in a secret location, strapped in case you attempt to maul me." He said, improving every word since he'd forgotten everything he'd been briefed by the general on.

"Why, what-what are you? Where is everyone? Where's Dean? And Jimms?" He said in his strained and hoarse voice.

"Hold that thought. I forgot what I was supposed to do here, I'll-,"

"Are you a talking rottweiler?"

"Ehrm, yes. I amm I suppose."

"Wh-where is everyone?! Whats going on?! WHATS HAPPENING?! DEAN?!" The human began to panic and attempt to thrash about, only to have the cuffs dig deeply into his wrists. Dane had remembered something about that war humans had fought, so he decided to mention it.

"Umm, well there kinda was a war and…everyone died." He said dumbly.

_Why did they choose me for this?! I can't be serious in these situ-oh! That's why they picked me! I'm chill with this kind of thing!_

"What war?! WHEN!" The human had fully regained his voice due to the reaction his body had to waking up here with no other humans in sight, strapped to a metal bed with an alien in the room. The fact the he had hazy recollection of _everything _didn't help to much either.

"It was around, well more than like ten million years ago. Way more." He thought he'd said the wrong thing by the look on the kids face. The human was no more than sixteen.

"Ha! That's a good one. I bet Deans out that door laughing his ass off! Now let me OUT OF THIS BED!" He began to frantically struggle again, only this time he began to warp the cuffs.

"Woah, woah! Calm down! You're safe, just stop struggling and let me just…say something. Someone said something about Protocol Four. That mean something to you? Otherwise just, chill." He tried to calm the panicking human, only succeeding when Protocol Four was mentioned. Something seemed to click, and the human stooped thrashing wildly.

"Protocol-," The human froze mid-sentence and looked straight up at the ceiling as though he was remembering something.

"And that's why they told me to say that I guess." Dane mumbled under his breath as he watched the human.

The kid snapped out of his trance and looked back to Dane.

"You mean, everyone I know was wiped out?" He said quietly and sadly. A single salty tear slid down the side of his face, twinkling and leaving a shiny path in the white light.

"Well, kinda." He said, glancing around before looking at a speck of food on his boots. The human was only half listening, as he was beginning to cry more, but never making a sound.

Dane decided it was best to have the room clean when General Pepper arrived, so he found a broom and a dustpan propped up in a corner near the back of the room.

"So, you get what's going on now I take it?" He said, looking up from his sweeping at the human. The kid nodded, but said nothing.

"Well, what your name? If you remember that is." The canine asked, looking back the shining particles of foil still littered about from his meal.

"I, think its Zach. I'm not sure anymore. Everything's all hazy." He answered, pausing when he tried to remember.

Dane simply nodded and finished sweeping up his mess before dumping it in a trash chute and making his way to the bed Zach was on. He unclasped the cuffs around his wrists. They had dug into his wrist during his violent and panicked jerking. They were red, and the skin underneath was nearly broken. Light bruises were already forming. He examined the needles that were shaken out as well, and moved them aside and wrapped them by their tubes around the edge up the steel bedrail.

"My name is Dane, by the way. Feel free to sit up." Dane said. "I have no idea what you're feeling but you may as well be comfy. And what is Protocol Four?" He said as Zach sat up and cradled his face in his hands.

"It's was something about the continuation of Humanity after the war. I can't remember anything specific. I can't even remember my own age!"

"Dane nodded once again. "What do you remember exactly?" He questioned.

"I remember…Dean. And Jimms, but not much else. Nothing specific as I said. Now, my turn for questions. I get that you're whatever species that lives here, but why do you look like an animal?" Dane was about to feel offended, but he remembered the situation.

"What exactly do you mean?" He inquired, cocking his head slightly to the side.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure that you look like an animal from when humans were still here. Is everyone like that?" He was still straining to pull memories out of what seemed to be a tar pit in his mind. Anything he had in his memories, he had to strain to access.

"Yep. I think that scientist guy mentioned that. He said we _miraculously evolved from wild undomesticated species to replace the sentient being we once lived in the shadow of._" He quoted word for word what he'd been told. He scoffed at the foolishness of the scientist's words.

"He was looking through files in that old base we found you in. Guess he saw pictures of animals from your time period." Zach sighed deeply and started to say something, before changing his mind.

He looked down at the metal tiles on the floor, and just thought. He thought about how much his life had just changed.

"I don't know what going on, but I know well enough that I was trusted with this. With keeping Humanity in existence. I want to speak with these scientists. I just remembered something important." Dane shook his head at his request.

"Nope." He denied. "I have specific orders _not _to let _anyone _else make contact with you until General Pepper meets you. You may want to stretch out your legs a bit. You'll be doing some walking. I'll just unhook you from all this stuff first." He motioned to the tubes and sensors still attached to Zach's body.

"Your legs were pumped with a slight electric shock while you were here to reactivate your muscles or something." Dane mentioned while trying to be careful of all the hoses and tubes. "Something about you being a cripple for a while otherwise."

Zach just kept quiet. Deep down he was terrified of what was going on. He knew nothing of these creatures, and nothing of their culture. But, he had a mission. The exact parameters of that mission were still a mystery, but he had a strong will to complete it.

"Is there, anything I should know about you people? Anything at all?" Zach asked after a long period of silence in the room.

"I'll just let the scientists explain all that. I don't think I'm the best person to tell you all that." Dane answered, flipping through a magazine he'd found somewhere in the room.

"Can-can I see that?" Zach asked oddly, eyeing the magazine in Dane's black furred hands.

"Umm, sure I suppose. That may tell you _something _about our culture. Oh, and, the General may walk in that door at any given time so…be ready. And don't say anything about species or anything. It will make him think I'd done nothing here." Dane said handing Zach the colorful magazine. Zach opened it and his eyes grew wide. Whether in shock or disbelief, Dane didn't know. That is until Zach closed his eyes a bit, leaned back and looked at the book.

"Can you even read that?" Dane was unsure if their writings and letterings were the same as his.

"Nope, but I can see the pictures fine enough!" Zach quipped, flipping to another page in the magazine.

"You know," He started, "I think I'm kinda lucky that…uh, what are you all called exactly?"

"Cornerians?"

Zach nodded and continued, "I'm lucky that you Cornerians look kinda like humans. In an odd, animal kinda way." Zach decided that this was now his life, so he needed to get used to it.

"You know, I just realized the type of magazine that is. I don't think you should be-,"

"Eh! NO! I need to _learn _your _culture_." Zach said as an excuse to continue staring at the pages. Sure, the magazine wasn't _exactly _age appropriate, but it showed him his _options,_ so to speak.

"I think you and I should be able to get along just fine. So, like what you see in that magazine or something?" Dane asked, looking around for something.

Zach shrugged. "I dunno. Kinda makes me remember, something. I can't quite grasp it though. It's, I guess I kinda like it."

"I don't know if that's good or bad. And may I ask how you've adjusted so quickly?" Dane asked, slightly wishing he was still looking at that magazine still. He stood up and continued searching for something.

"Don't think I've adjusted yet, but seeing as how this is now my life, I may as well try. But you sound nice enough, so maybe I'll be there soon enough. No point in avoiding it. Besides, I remember enough to know that this has to happen."

"Hey, speaking of that, what's up with the memory loss?" Dane grunted out while digging in a nearby drawer. He fished about before finally grasping something and pulling it out. It was a second magazine.

"How many of these do you have? Never mind, don't answer that. And to answer you, it always happens with long term cryo. And most of my memories aren't lost. I just have to either dig for them or be reminded of them." Zach explained, flipping another page before he saw a _very _intriguing picture of a female vixen.

Dane sat back down and opened up his crisp magazine, the crinkle of new paper was audible with every page he turned. "You're drooling. Stop it. It's weird." Dane chided the distracted human, who simply slurped.

"Hmm. Close enough." Dane shrugged. The two sat there for a while, just chatting while looking through their magazines.

Soon enough, though, a loud click was heard from the direction of the door.

"Upp! That's the General! Hand that thing here! He doesn't-," He chucked his magazine behind him while reaching for the magazine Zach held so he could get it out of sight, but Zach had other ideas. He stood up and bolted around the bed and past Dane, keeping the magazine out of his grasp all the while. They could hear the General walk in at that point, the heavy steel door loudly screeching open, followed by the sound of boot steps.

It was an odd sight for the old hound for sure with the very awake and alert human holding a Furr magazine while running from Dane. A quite intriguing, and honestly reassuring sight.

Pepper cleared his throat, and the Dane immediately stopped chasing the human and gave a crisp salute to the well-respected hound. Zach simply jumped over the bed before finally looking up.

"Umm, it's, it's exactly what it looks like, sir." Dane said, looking around and nervously holding the back of his neck.

"Well, I see he's, awake. But, why does he have a Furr magazine?" Pepper asked, giving the human a kind, warm look.

"Well, you see, we were talking about our culture, and I was looking at it, and he asked to see it so, I wasn't thinking and I gave it to him. I think he likes it though." Dane was slightly concerned about the scene Pepper had walked in to, but he knew the old general had a humorous side to him. He only hoped he found this funny.

"Well, shall I mean the young man?" Pepper asked more to Zach, who's full attention was on the, slightly, _graphic literature._

"Umm, I suppose. I'll just, put this over, there somewhere." Zach said once Peppers words had registered in his brain. He tossed the magazine over to a nearby counter, already cluttered by Dane.

Zach slowly approached Pepper, still nervous as he slowly came to a stop in front of Pepper. He was a full foot taller than him. In fact, He was a solid four inches taller than Dane, who was six foot tall.

"Don't be afraid, boy. We aren't here to hurt you." Pepper said, extending a hand to Zach, who hesitantly took it.

"Zach Myles sir." He said as he shook Peppers hand.

"General Pepper of the Cornerian Military. It's good to see you moving about. The scientists didn't think you'd wake up." Pepper said as the handshake ended.

"Didn't you bring a guard here or something? You're not traveling alone I hope." Dane piped up from behind Zach.

"Yes, I did have a personal guard on hand for the trip here, but since there are military personnel stationed at every corner, I let him go on a break."

After the brief discussion, silence enveloped the room. It remained that way, with Zach just observing every centimeter of both the Cornerians in the room, until he finally broke the silence.

"Soo…what now?"

**Well, I hope everyone enjoyed! I guess there were some **_**similar**_** ideas to mine, but since I don't know about them, whatevs. Anyway, be sure to show some reader support and gimme a review! Maybe even a follow and fav if you like? And be sure to tell me if you notice any errors in the writing. I'll go over again and weed it all out.**

**Till next time!**


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